The U.S.’s top general said he doubts Beijing plans to try to take Taiwan militarily, comments that ease tensions regarding the island just before President Joe Biden meets China’s leader.
"I do think that Xi Jinping doesn’t necessarily want to take Taiwan by force,” Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Tokyo on Friday. "He will try to use other ways to do this.”
Brown added that he wrote to his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Liu Zhenli, to establish lines of communication but hadn’t yet interacted with him directly. "If the opportunity presents itself, I will definitely engage,” Brown said.